Apple issues Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update for Snow Leopard

Apple on Monday issued a recommended "Supplemental Update" for all Macs running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 that delivers a handful of final fixes for the previous-generation operating system.

Specifically, Apple said the 10.19MB update resolves issues with:
Transferring personal data, settings, and compatible applications from a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard to a new Mac running Mac OS X Lion
Certain network printers that pause print jobs immediately and fail to complete
System audio that stops working when using HDMI or optical audio out
A similar 10.23MB update was released for Snow Leopard Server.

For those Macs that haven't yet moved to Snow Leopard version 10.6.8, Apple re-released its distributions of that point release with the supplemental fixes baked in:
Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1 (453MB)
Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 (1.09GB)
Mac OS X Server v10.6.8 Update v1.1 (518MB)
Monday's releases would appear to be the final updates Apple has planned for the Snow Leopard operating system, with the company having released Mac OS X Lion last Wednesday.

The user base has now certainly grown to a point where not everyone can simply upgrade to a new major release. First of all, some older hardware may be too slow or not have enough capacity to run Lion, but may still be sufficient for real world use. Second, especially with an upgrade that technically cannot run everything that worked before (e.g. the no-longer-existing services in Server or the missing Rosetta support), some people will have to stick. I'll leave one of my four Macs on Snow Leopard, because it runs a German accounting software that, until it's 2009 version, only ran in Rosetta emulation because of it's older Filemaker base. It won't be upgraded, but I need to keep those years around to look up records or if an audit comes up, so unless I find a legal and working way to run a VM with Snow, I'll not touch the OS install on that box. Many people will have similar reasons not to upgrade, especially when using pro-grade graphics, design, music and other tools. App upgrades of that magnitude don't happen quickly and they can be quite costly. Surely Apple has a more-ready-to-upgrade userbase, but if you look around and see how many XP or even NT4 boxes are still around, you get the idea.

So supporting a "previous" release of an OS, at least with critical bug fixes and security update, including a formal commitment on how long this will be done (i.e. 5 years after it stopped shipping or so) is one of the steps a software company has to take to be taken seriously.

Let's see - I hope AI is not right with it's "the last update" prediction this time - it would't really look nice for Apple.

I'd sincerely hope Apple will continue to upgrade Snow Leopard with bug fixes and updated peripherial hardware support like print drivers, etc. ... I hope AI is not right with it's "the last update" prediction this time - it would't really look nice for Apple.

Almost certainly, the unusual step of releasing an update with the same version number as the last one was done primarily so that they would still have 10.6.9 left for other fixes.

I would say the versioning numbers suggest that this is the *second* last update for 10.6, which sounds about right given that there is rarely more than one or two updates after the new full number version comes out.

Almost certainly, the unusual step of releasing an update with the same version number as the last one was done primarily so that they would still have 10.6.9 left for other fixes.

I would say the versioning numbers suggest that this is the *second* last update for 10.6, which sounds about right given that there is rarely more than one or two updates after the new full number version comes out.

Right. This fix isn't big enough for a .x.x release and Apple doesn't want to extend it to the .x.x.x structure.

So supporting a "previous" release of an OS, at least with critical bug fixes and security update, including a formal commitment on how long this will be done (i.e. 5 years after it stopped shipping or so) is one of the steps a software company has to take to be taken seriously.

Let's see - I hope AI is not right with it's "the last update" prediction this time - it would't really look nice for Apple.

F.

So be just like MSFT to be taken seriously, eh? Apple has traditionally dragged its users kicking and screaming into the future whether they like it or not. It has worked out quite well for them it would seem. I see no reason for them to change their stripes now.

This seems like decent evidence to support the principle of not updating to a new major release until the first dot update.

It appears that this Snow Leopard update has as much to do with ensuring a trouble free transition to Lion as anything else.

I'll probably wait another week or two just to make sure the kinks are ironed out before I switch to 10.7

It's your choice of course, but I always wonder why anyone does this (waits). it's not like the bugs and glitches in a new version of OS-X are really ever *that* bad. This is one of the better ones, but even the worst updates ever are only really bad news for a tiny fraction of users and if it's a serious bug it's usually fixed within a week.

Pretty much all the bugs I've encountered so far are minor video glitches and silly stuff that doesn't matter, with the exception of a giant privacy hole that has been introduced in Safari 5.1 and that's a "design choice" and unlikely to be fixed at all. Especially since no one seems to have noticed it yet or cares about it so far.

"System audio that stops working when using HDMI or optical audio out"

Where is the LION fix for this?!

My thoughts exactly. I use a Mac Mini for a Media PC, and whenever I play an M4V with stereo AAC via optical out, it often stops working shortly after, requiring a reboot to get things working again. I was hoping the update to Lion would fix it, but unfortunately the problem exists there as well.

Here's hoping they put out the patch for Lion in the inevitable post-release update.

It's your choice of course, but I always wonder why anyone does this (waits). it's not like the bugs and glitches in a new version of OS-X are really ever *that* bad. This is one of the better ones, but even the worst updates ever are only really bad news for a tiny fraction of users and if it's a serious bug it's usually fixed within a week.

Pretty much all the bugs I've encountered so far are minor video glitches and silly stuff that doesn't matter, with the exception of a giant privacy hole that has been introduced in Safari 5.1 and that's a "design choice" and unlikely to be fixed at all. Especially since no one seems to have noticed it yet or cares about it so far.

I typically install a new OS on a spare partition and bang on it a couple of weeks. I'm in the Apple Developer program though so this makes things a bit easier to do, as well as to provide feedback, but I see no reason why anyone else couldn't do the same. Once I'm comfortable that there are no major gotchas, I just wipe, install, and then restore the bits I want on the new OS. I agree, the folks who wait for months (years?) are just torturing themselves for the low low price of $29 dollars

Almost certainly, the unusual step of releasing an update with the same version number as the last one was done primarily so that they would still have 10.6.9 left for other fixes.

We don't know Apple's reasoning, but they could have called it 10.6.9 and still had plenty of number remaining (10.6.10, 10.6.11, 10.6.12, etc.) for future updates. I think a better reason is that 10.6.9 is already in the works and these fixes were made to the 10.6.8 codebase, not the 10.6.9 code.

Almost certainly, the unusual step of releasing an update with the same version number as the last one was done primarily so that they would still have 10.6.9 left for other fixes.

I would say the versioning numbers suggest that this is the *second* last update for 10.6, which sounds about right given that there is rarely more than one or two updates after the new full number version comes out.

Leopard is still at 10.5.8. I don't think Apple feel the need to fill up all the .x.y slots. It's entirely possible there will never be a 10.6.9.

We don't know Apple's reasoning, but they could have called it 10.6.9 and still had plenty of number remaining (10.6.10, 10.6.11, 10.6.12, etc.) for future updates. I think a better reason is that 10.6.9 is already in the works and these fixes were made to the 10.6.8 codebase, not the 10.6.9 code.

Yes, the existence of the Tiger 10.4.11 occurred to me about a half hour after I made that statement.
I think you are probably right, but it could be the way I initially said also. They have gone past 0.9 updates before, but at other times it seems they jumped through hoops not to. In the end it probably doesn't matter as long as they have some kind of plan.

It's your choice of course, but I always wonder why anyone does this (waits). it's not like the bugs and glitches in a new version of OS-X are really ever *that* bad. This is one of the better ones, but even the worst updates ever are only really bad news for a tiny fraction of users and if it's a serious bug it's usually fixed within a week.

I always wait for my work machine. I upgrade my Macbook that I only use for home stuff, and observe how it works for a while before I update the work machine. If it's working, I don't want to change that. The glitches may not be that bad, but I'd rather stick with no glitches.

I typically install a new OS on a spare partition and bang on it a couple of weeks. I'm in the Apple Developer program though so this makes things a bit easier to do, as well as to provide feedback, but I see no reason why anyone else couldn't do the same. Once I'm comfortable that there are no major gotchas, I just wipe, install, and then restore the bits I want on the new OS. I agree, the folks who wait for months (years?) are just torturing themselves for the low low price of $29 dollars

I'd just use SuperDuper to back up the HDD to an external (bootable) USB drive before upgrading. If I ever need to boot back into Snow Leopard, after upgrading to Lion, I can still do it

I hope this doesn't mean they are not intending to fix the Wi-Fi problems being experienced by 2011 iMacs ? I guess with 2010 iMacs they released a firmware update, so maybe it will have to be an eventual firmware fix for the new models too.

It's your choice of course, but I always wonder why anyone does this (waits). it's not like the bugs and glitches in a new version of OS-X are really ever *that* bad. This is one of the better ones, but even the worst updates ever are only really bad news for a tiny fraction of users and if it's a serious bug it's usually fixed within a week.

I used to feel the same way you do, and I used to upgrade on the first day etc. Then when 10.6.5(?) came out, it introduced a bizarre wifi problem, that made my connection erratic and caused the wifi signal to drop out constantly.

I spent weeks (literally tens of hours) trying to fix this. I went to the Genius bar twice, rolled back the operating system to an earlier dot release etc. The Apple Support forums were filled with folks having the same issue trying hundreds of different supposed "fixes". It was probably the most painful experience I've gone thru on a Mac.

Apple eventually fixed it, (can't remember if it took until the next release?) but after that nightmarish experience I pretty much vowed to let each significant release percolate in the market for a week or two before I upgrade.

It's your choice of course, but I always wonder why anyone does this (waits). it's not like the bugs and glitches in a new version of OS-X are really ever *that* bad. This is one of the better ones, but even the worst updates ever are only really bad news for a tiny fraction of users and if it's a serious bug it's usually fixed within a week.

Pretty much all the bugs I've encountered so far are minor video glitches and silly stuff that doesn't matter, with the exception of a giant privacy hole that has been introduced in Safari 5.1 and that's a "design choice" and unlikely to be fixed at all. Especially since no one seems to have noticed it yet or cares about it so far.

Maybe you could tell us about that hole in Safari so we can take you seriously. The only thing I noticed (Safari 5.1 for Snow Leopard) is that it's not blocking cookies - I have it set to block all cookies, but it's accepting them anyway.

I did this update on Tuesday, and since then Safari doesn't load. It starts, but stops right in the beginning.
Both Snow Leopard and Safari were up to date before this update.
I did all the permission stuff, used Onyx to cleanup...

Immediately after installing this update, having left the room for a couple minutes, when I returned my MacBook Pro seemed half asleep (the sleep light by lid latch was solidly grey; the screen was black; nothing could wake the machine; no external monitor showed anything). No amount of power cycling, magsafe power pulling, battery pulling, SMC (System Management Controller) resetting, target disc mode keypressing, could shake this state. I appear to now have a brick instead of a MacBook Pro, apparently thanks to this update.

Unbelievable. I tried leaving the power cord unconnected and running the battery down to nearly but not quite nothing. Then it started up (still without the power cord) as if it hadn't just freaked me out for several hours.